Willie Brown delivers the Commonwealth Club of California's 2012 annual lecture on political trends. The inimitable former San Francisco mayor and renowned pundit gives his take on the political scene as we approach the presidential election.

Simon Balderstone

Simon Balderstone AM is an International Olympic Committee adviser and former general manager and board member of Sydney Olympic Games Organising Committee (SOCOG).
He was a member of Australia's first expedition to climb Mount Everest in 1984. He was an adviser to the former minister of the environment, Graham Richardson, and an adviser to Prime Ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating.
He became General Manager of the Sydney Olympic Games Organising Committee and a SOCOG board member.

Bob Brown

Senator Bob Brown has been a life-long activist and has become a leading voice for human rights in Australia. Earlier this year, his "Tibet Motion," calling for the Australian Government to take reasonable action against repression of Tibetan people by China, passed the Senate without dissent.
He has long been involved in conservation, and in 1986, he was shot at and assaulted during logging protests. He became the director of the Wilderness Society, which organised the blockade of the dam-works on Tasmania's wild Franklin River in 1982, where he was arrested and spent nineteen days in Risdon Prison.
While serving in the Tasmanian parliament, he successfully campaigned for a large increase in the protected wilderness areas. Bob Brown was a driving force in forming the Australian Greens in 1992.
He has spoken widely for the rights of the Tibetan people and against human rights abuses within China.

Geraldine Doogue

Geraldine Doogue is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster. She is the presenter of the weekend breakfast radio program Saturday Extra on Radio National. She is also the host of ABC television program Compass.

Chin Jin

Chin Jin is a Chinese-born Australian living in NSW Australia since 1988. He has been active in the overseas Chinese democratic movement since early 1989 and joined the Federation for a Democratic China, set up in the wake of the Tiananmen Square Incident.
He is an MA graduate of the University of Western Sydney, and has written widely on Human Rights and the political structure of China. In 2003, Chin Jin raised national attention in Australia as he was redirected to the soundproof gallery of Parliament House when the Chinese president Hu Jintao addressed Parliament.
He was host of the International Conference on Chinese Democracy held in Sydney, Australia in 2005. He also hosted the Dalai Lama's address to the Chinese Diaspora in 2007. In April, he has toured Japan to deliver a speech titled "Political and military clout of autocratic China over its neighbouring countries."

Hamish McDonald

Hamish McDonald has spent twenty of his thirty-five years in journalism based in Asia - in Indonesia, Japan, Hong Kong, India, and China, where he was the correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald based in Beijing.
He is currently the Asia-Pacific editor for the Sydney Morning Herald. He has been political editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review. He is the author of several books.

Michael Milton

Michael Milton is an elite athlete. He is Australia's first winter gold medalist (Olympic or Paralympic) and is Australia's fastest skier. Michael also competes at the highest level in track and cycling events.
He has walked the Kokoda Track and has climbed to the summit of Africa's highest point on Mount Kilimanjaro. In 2007, Michael was the ACT Australian of the Year.

Paul Monk

Paul Monk is co-founder and executive director of Austhink Consulting and author of Thunder from the Silent Zone: Rethinking China (2005) and was a lecturer in Chinese Politics at La Trobe University in 1999.
He is a former East Asia analyst for the Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO), where he became head of the China desk and chairman of the interagency analysts working group on China.

Hamish McDonald contrasts the outpouring of protest over the Beijing Olympic Games to silence in previous years - such as the 1904 games in St. Louis, Missouri - when perhaps more glaring human rights issues were largely ignored by the international community.